Dell Active Fabric Controller Owner's Manual
Active Fabric Controller (AFC) Deployment
Guide
Notes, Cautions, and Warnings
NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your computer.
CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you
how to avoid the problem.
WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death.
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jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.
2014–04
Rev. A00
Contents
1 Introduction................................................................................................................5
System Requirements............................................................................................................................5
Recommended Requirements .............................................................................................................5
Pre-Installation Procedure....................................................................................................................6
Installing a Single-Server Controller ....................................................................................................6
Installing a Dual-Server (Active/Standby) Controller........................................................................... 7
2 Install AFC using OVF...............................................................................................9
Installing the Software...........................................................................................................................9
Deploying AFC — OVF using vSphere................................................................................................ 10
Configuring the AFC VM......................................................................................................................13
AFC Main Menu....................................................................................................................................15
Show AFC Status..................................................................................................................................16
Configuring the AFC Active Node.......................................................................................................17
Configuring the AFC Standby Node................................................................................................... 18
Configuring Logs to the Database......................................................................................................19
Upgrading AFC.....................................................................................................................................19
Maintaining the VM using OVF............................................................................................................19
Installing BMP......................................................................................................................................20
Upgrading the Switch Firmware......................................................................................................... 21
3 Install AFC using RPM............................................................................................23
Preparing the Server for AFC RPM Installation ..................................................................................23
Installing AFC using RPM.................................................................................................................... 24
....................................................................................................................................................... 24
Installing the AFC Active Node..................................................................................................... 24
Installing the AFC Standby Node.................................................................................................. 25
Uninstalling AFC.................................................................................................................................. 25
4 Deploying AFC.........................................................................................................27
Installing the Dell OpenStack ML2 Mechanism Driver.......................................................................27
Configuring BMP on the Switch......................................................................................................... 27
Connect to Legacy Networks.............................................................................................................28
OpenStack Legacy Configuration................................................................................................ 28
Configure the Uplinks................................................................................................................... 28
Enabling Active Fabric.........................................................................................................................29
Step 1 — Weaving the Fabric.........................................................................................................29
Step 2 — Enabling the Fabric .......................................................................................................30
Step 3 — Enabling the Controllers............................................................................................... 30
Step 4 — Configuring the Provider Networks .............................................................................30
Step 5 — Enabling the Tenant Workload Configuration using OpenStack................................ 30
Step 6 — Enabling Server High Availability...................................................................................30
1
Introduction
This document guides you through the installation, setup, and deployment of the Active Fabric Controller
(AFC) software on a single server or on two servers in an active-standby configuration.
NOTE: You can install the software on a single server. For resiliency, Dell Networking recommends
configuring a dual-server setup for high availability (HA).
Install the software using the route processor module (RPM) or the open virtualization format (OVF)
image. Installation scripts, including RPM-based scripts for components, such as the database service,
software controller, and web-based graphical user interface (GUI) are used during installation.
System Requirements
Each server can be a virtual machine (VM) or a physical machine. The server or virtual machine
requirements are:
• CPU — 2.4 GHz, Intel Xeon CPU or equivalent. For optimal performance, Dell Networking
recommends a four-core as a minimum.
• Memory — 8 GB
• Disk space — 30 GB
• Network Interface — 1x1 GbE
• CentOS 6.4, 64–bit (for RPM installation)
• ESX 4.x or 5.x server (for OVF installation)
• MongoDB
• Link layer discovery protocol (LLDP) enabled on all hosts and servers
Recommended Requirements
The following components are not required to run the software, but are recommended to provide
additional capabilities:
• Dell OpenFlow-compatible switches
• A second server for HA configuration to provide resiliency
• Enabling bare metal provisioning (BMP) updates the firmware on the switches automatically. To
enable BMP, the switches and the controller must be in the same Layer2 (L2) network. Also, the
location of the image and the primary boot location must be the same.
Introduction
5
Pre-Installation Procedure
Before installing the software, perform the following pre-installation steps:
1. Prepare the infrastructure networks.
Infrastructure networks support management of the physical infrastructure by the software. A typical
OpenStack environment requires two infrastructure networks: a storage network and an OOB
network. You can implement these networks as two separate physical L2 networks or as virtual local
area networks (VLANs) on the same physical L2 network. Typically, servers in an OpenStack
environment connect to both infrastructure networks.
2. Prepare the out-of-band (OOB) OpenFlow management network.
The controller communicates with the OpenFlow-enabled switches over a Layer3 (L3) IP network,
known as the OpenFlow management network. This is typically done using an OOB network.
Connect the management port of each OpenFlow-enabled switch to this network and ensure that
the server used to install the software is physically connected to this network.
3. Prepare the OpenFlow-enabled switches.
The software supports Dell Networking S4810, S4820T, S6000, and MXL switches. The Dell
Networking operating system (OS) version on the switch must be 9.4(0.0) or later. For OpenFlow
requirements, refer to the SDN Deployment Guide on the Dell Networking documentation website.
Installing a Single-Server Controller
You can install the software on a single server; however, this type of deployment does not provide the
resiliency of a dual-server configured for HA. As shown in the following example, a single-server
deployment:
• requires you to deploy all AFC components on a single VM or server
• allows you to deploy associated software on additional VMs or servers as needed
6
Introduction
Figure 1. Single-Server Deployment
Installing a Dual-Server (Active/Standby) Controller
Dell Networking recommends a dual-server controller for resiliency. As shown in the following example,
a dual-server deployment:
• Requires you to deploy all AFC components on a single VM or server
• Allows you to deploy associated software on additional VMs or servers as needed
• Provides an Active-Standby configuration using a single VIP address
Introduction
7
Figure 2. Installing a Dual-Server Controller
8
Introduction
Install AFC using OVF
The following sections describe how to install AFC using OVF.
You can install the software on a VM running on a hypervisor or on a physical machine.
Installing AFC using OVF loads the software image and configure the system to interconnect with your
hypervisor environment.
NOTE: Regardless of installation type or deployment scenario, you must enable LLDP on all servers
and hosts.
Installing the Software
The OVF includes all software and services required to run AFC, including the following software
components:
• Controller
• Web server
• GUI
• Monitor
• Database server
Deploy the OVF on an ESX 4.x or ESX 5.x server. The software is pre-installed in the OVF image.
2
Install AFC using OVF
9
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